


(So You Think You Know About) The Game of Life?

by TheSupernaut (orphan_account)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Breakfast in Bed, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Dorks in Love, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/F, Holding Hands, Paragon Commander Shepard, Plans For The Future, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 00:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9264902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TheSupernaut
Summary: It's the morning after Miranda's descent into madness, and they're still together, slightly bent but never broken.She decides to do something for Shepard, who gave body, mind, and soul to defeat the Reapers.Shepard decides to pay her back for it.Or: A Sequel to Storming the Castle.





	

Miranda wonders how it took her so long to enjoy cooking things.

"Cook faster damnit," she hisses through her teeth, casting a glare at the still cooking French toast that would've made a rampaging husk pause.

She tries to keep the devil under lock and key, tries not to recall how the sound of the bread sizzling in the pan strikes the same note as charring flesh, black and clinging to the soaked ground like eggs that stay stuck to the skillet.

_'Great, some breakfast in bed this is turning out to be. Should I offer Shepard a side of existential dread to go with her hand made French toast?'_

The morning after the nightmare has coming knocking, and Miranda doesn't know to how to greet it at the door, much less let it in. Her whole life has been measured in absolutes. Cerberus is absolutely working towards the betterment of humanity, the Lazarus project must be absolutely perfect, everyone absolutely will survive the war, once all the outcomes are leveraged. Except her life is chaos now, and the only way Miranda knows to how to deal with chaos is calculations and icy temperament, kept at absolute zero for the lowest possible risk of emotional attachment. Everything use to be a means to an end, even Shepard, and now that the war is over, Miranda finds herself adrift.

Shepard makes her feel human, chases off nightly fears that her modified genes and bio-engineering created a monster too calculating to know love. Except there is no castle to hide in, so Miranda does the one thing she can. Closes her eyes, inhales, and exhales a breath like it were the dawn of spring, melting the icy chains that binded her for years, melting the facade she kept up until Shepard rose two days ahead of her resurrection to cast wild eyes at Miranda, fear casting a mirror to gaze back at fear.

Miranda flips the toast over, making a happy little noise in her throat as she flips the toast over, smiling at how perfectly golden brown it is. "There we are," she says to nobody save the empty expanse of the kitchen, shining in the glow of passing early morning traffic, streaks of color zipping past slanted shades. A prisoner fighting fire with fire, having received a stay of execution, that's what Miranda feels like. Death's elongated grasp fought with the all consuming wildfire of shaky, new-born domesticity. Toast and salsa covered scrambled eggs and juice to stave off nights drunk on the lingering sensation of gore, of death and decay dragging you back down into the horrors of pitching heart and hands to keep going the last desperate gasp of a desperate galaxy.

For someone equated with zipping around, punching bad guys and leaving blue streaks and red tinged flesh fragments behind, Shepard's pretty good at keep things together, keep then in working order when others would have given up long ago. The thought makes Miranda's head fill with ricocheting ideas as she slots the toast onto a plate, gathering the items on a silver tray grasped with both hands.

 Each step illuminating a path towards a future once shrouded in fog, now made clear. Painting walls with bad artistic expressions as opposed to good murderous rhythms. Walks on sand swept beaches on some distant planet, instead of trudging through dusty decaying streets in the dark tinged hellscape of London. Tucking children in for bed instead of burying little pieces of friends. The thoughts make a smile creep onto Miranda's face, a spring in her step as she enters the bedroom, Shepard looking up from her datapad with a confused expression on her face.

One eyebrow arched, hair as wild as her movements on a battlefield. "Are you sure I'm not in some kind of Invasion of The Body Snatchers shit? Who are you, and what have you done with Miranda?" Miranda just rolls her eyes, sets the tray over Shepard's knees, the Ex-Commander sitting cross-legged nestled in a large white bathrobe. "Come now dear, haven't I always strived to give you things you'd like?"

Shepard sets aside the datapad, starts chewing the French toast bit by bit, motioning with her free hand for the other woman to reclaim her half of the bed.

Miranda does so, and Shepard pauses her controlled eating to look Miranda eye to eye, fingers threaded together. Miranda can't help but notice the dark crumbs plastered to contrast the paleness of Janes freckled cheeks."Well, that clone Cerberus built was kind of a murderous asshole, so I'm gonna have to hold that against you." Now Miranda's forced to call in the big guns, using a deep breathing exercise Chambers had given her whenever she felt a headache creeping on the proverbial horizon.

By the time she's done counting backwards and opens her eyes, Shepard's torn through the rest of her meal, wiping off sticky fingers before giving a happy little noise of contentment. She picks the data pad back up, resting her head on Miranda's shoulder. Miranda feels her heart skip a beat, casting wide eyes to the current page Jane is lazily scrolling through.

"is that?" Her voice catches in her throat, and suddenly her skin feels too hot, cheeks burning and mind buzzing with possibilities. "You're goddamn right it is," Shepard says, shark like grin on display as a loud ding noise comes up, and she opens the e-mail, showing a note written in elegant black scrawl. "You always did nice things for me, when we were together on the Normandy," she articulates, absentmindedly threading their fingers together, leaving Miranda to burn with nervous excitement.

"I never did anything this nice," Miranda says, eyes prickling with tears, because this is the sort of thing she's dreamed about doing for years. Shepard just had to book them reservations at the fanciest restaurant on the Citadel. Marble flooring, white gloved waiters in expensive suit jackets, ridiculously small portions, the works. Miranda was never one who desired to rub shoulders with the elite, but she's kept this fantastic dream of being wined and dined by a man while wearing a figure hugging cocktail dress and sipping a nice Pinot Noir through a glass too big to down in one go. It always got her through the heavy weight of dealing with such dust and demise that war drags with it, a flickering of lights and exhalation of a "goodbye cruel world!" last breath as another body adds itself to the pile. Another body to soak the ground red with blood and another person to take up the tattered banner for.

Miranda's dealt with demise and grappeled with god imitation for so long, that tearing through minute portions and thrusting insults like knife jabs at the too-pretentious aura of such a place feels like heaven. Shepard may not be a man, but considering the ballsiness of her more death-defying stunts to save the galaxy, Miranda will love it all the same. She wipes a tear away with her thumb, as Shepard puts the data pad down, wrapping strong arms around her waist and giving a warm smile that stirs some kind of fiery determination in her chest.

"I'm thinking after this, we go take a vacation somewhere," Shepard mumbles into the crook of the other woman's neck. Miranda's heart starts to thunder in her chest, and she drifts out of herself.

Feels warm sand sift under her feet and through her toes, Shepard taking her hand in hand to watching the sinking of the sun and the giving birth of night-life as the city they visit casts shining light against the encroaching darkness.

An ocean of little white dots off some distance that'll remind Miranda of the stars passed on the way to some fight that now feels layered with dust and memorialized in some long gone past. Too innumerable to count, as the sea laps their toes, Shepard yelping and grinding through chattering teeth that they need to get warm, traipsing over hills and across quiet city squares to nestle down in a coffee, extra milk, with whip cream and rising steam, as she stares out at the space before her, declaring herself ruler of this built-out-of-stone expanse. Miranda will roll her eyes, sip her coffee in a dignified manner, but enjoying the idea of the two of them playing king and queen.

By the time the thought drifts on passing breeze, Shepard's staring at her, smirk prominent and one eyebrow arched, but Miranda can't bring herself to care that her cheeks are definitely burning and the smile that shines is big. Big and full of hope.

"Someone took the idea rather well," Jane says in a bemused tone, closing her eyes, keeping their fingers threaded, no doubt picturing her vision of a nice vacation. One where the people of the city build a statue in her honor, declare her birthday a planet-wide holiday, and give her 50% off everything, because she saved their lives damnit! and she deserves to be treated like a hero, one not built on titles, legacy defining accolades and shiny medals, but recognition and reverent words of thanks shouted like trumpeters declaring the return of the king from some great dragon slaying quest.

Or at least, that's how Miranda pictures it, because Shepard's a compassionate soul who would reserve this dominating, ecomanical behavior only for times whispered in darkness and under the covers of nightly praises whispered in gasping breaths.

"Lets just go somewhere quiet, I'd rather not have people hounding us because the Savior of the Galaxy likes their three cheese plates and tacky overpriced artwork."

Shepard's pouting now, all raised lower lip and furrowed eyebrows. "That artwork's coming back with us. We need something to make this place come alive." Miranda just rolls her eyes, but presses her lips to Shepard's, silently givng a promise as warmth spreads through her. When they break it off, Shepard's back to shark grins and mischievous looks. "I guess I can live with that. As long as the paintings aren't made from some endangered speciesÂ blood."

Shepard's gaping now, drawing the sheets over her legs. "Are you crazy! We'll be the talk of the town, especially if we bring back paintings made with endangered species blood! People will think we're badass."

Miranda chuckles, drawing the sheets up over herself, resting her head against Shepard's shoulder, too content to give in to her Commander's misplaced enthusiasm. "And what will the little ones think?" Shepard just shrugs her shoulders, wrapping her arms around Miranda for a hug as the other woman feels her body go loose. "We'll just take them pirate hunting, and that dad got these paintings for saving a very grateful Asari maiden by doing something very brave." Miranda feels her eyes grow heavy, feels the warmth of calloused hands rubbing circles in the fabric of her nightshirt. "More like she did something very foolish and stupid." Shepard's laugh rings in her ears, and all Miranda can do is close her eyes and give in.

This is nice, this slice of comfort built on a foundation of dreams soon to be made reality. It makes Miranda feel all cozy, playing and toying with ideas of raising children with her flame-haired Commander, touring the galaxy on vacation time, not on some rapidly sped-up clock ticking second by second toward cessation of life and the feeling that the shadows are about to drag her under.

"You say that like I've never done anything foolish and stupid. I've done a lot of foolish things, and they lead me to you, so I guess I have to consider them pretty good."

"If you die from food poisoning because you won't listen to decent advice about not eating whatever the locals thrust in front of your face, I'm waiting a week to bring you back. Hopefully that will teach you a lesson."

"Deal." Shepard presses a kiss to Miranda's temple, sharing warmth and no doubt spreading grandiose dreams through hand-waving that Miranda can't see, but can imagine as well as she imagined the results of laborious flesh-mending and cybernetic enhancing that brought this ridiculous and wonderful woman into her life.

'I can definitely get use to this,' she thinks, before she leaps into the darkness of contented sleep, never once fearing that she'll be swallowed whole by it.

Shepard's here to keep guard, and for Miranda, it was totally worth all the blood, sweat, tears and frustrated growls exhaled whenever Jane's body protested the rummaging of her hands through reflex-less bodyparts.


End file.
